Forgive, Forget, Resent
by dropout-ninja
Summary: He was just standing there. Standing as if he belonged, at place with human soldiers and officers on human ground to honor a fallen human hero. Disgusting. Inspiring. - UNSC members differ on how they view the Sangheili observing the recognition of fallen human heroes


_Halo and its characters do not belong to me. All rights go to their respective owners._

_Warnings: Spoilers for Halo 3 ending. Xeno derogatory terms/slang and mentions of war._

_I have not read Glasslands, so all the information I got on the Voi Memorial was from the Halo 3 cutscene. There are likely inconsistencies between this and the canon from that book because of this._

* * *

He was just standing there. Standing as if he belonged, at place with human soldiers and officers on human ground to honor a fallen human hero. The rising sun glinted off dull colored ornamental armor; it shone on spiky plates and shadowed stylish crevices. The armor was such a stark contrast from the clothes and colors of the UNSC at the memorial. The attire was as alien as the man himself.

Some would say it was inspiring to see a once enemy of humanity standing with them to mourn their losses. One of the viewers, Alistair Singh, fit in that camp; the major had been on battlefields against the Sangheili and he had been on battlefields with them on both Earth and the Ark. Seeing the elite 'Arbiter' in action actively saving his skin and all the rest of them was about as impressive as watching a hulking spartan at work. The fact that this war had finally, impossibly, come to an end and that the aliens they were hopelessly outmatched by were solidifying their peace alliance with Earth by sending their leader here to this ceremony was as reassuring and inspiring as it got. Nearby, colonel Reid Camp resisted the urge to flinch back and shoot every time she saw the alien; it was instinctive from over two decades of warring. After that instinct was clamped down on, Camp felt respect not only for the leaders on both sides that were willing to put everything aside for peace, but also for every foot soldier on both sides that now had to follow their lead and look past the instincts.

But not all thought that way. Everyone could see that he was just standing there; but what they _saw_ past that stance and figure varied.

* * *

Gripping his gun tightly, Robert Brady tried to focus on his job to shoot up three times in salute rather than his entire clip into the hingehead. Sure, he couldn't read those ugly 'faces' but the spit-chin looked far too calm for his liking. He didn't even have the decency to stand further apart from the memorial attendees. No human stood too close to him and so his presence was disruptive among the half circle. It was disruptful all over. And it was so incredibly disrespectful, so far over the line. There on the wall were the heroes of the Installation battles; those that had "courage beyond measure; sacrifice, and unshakable conviction". And here, mere feet away, stood one of those high level sharks whose presence spat on the names of Captain Keyes, Commander Keyes, the spartan hero. It was disrespectful. So very disrespectful. Brady had to resist shooting every single bullet he had into that glinting alien armor.

The air he carried himself in was worse than calm. It seemed plaintive, mourning. As if the creatures responsible for the billions of lives lost would be sad at a human death, let alone several. Voi was human ground. This was the hot and shimmering ground of their homeworld, visible effects of the partial glassing reminder enough of alien presence, and it shouldn't have any _hooves_ on it. These were UNSC mourners; people who were actually distressed over every death on that wall, every loss of the war. No elite would mourn any of those. Even those they weren't the direct cause of, they were still responsible for. But he just stood there like he belonged. Like Brady shouldn't even bat an eye every time his gaze unpleasantly went past his tall form. He couldn't belong. He shouldn't be being treated_ like he should belong_. It was awful on the Ark and it was awful now. But at least on the Ark, Brady could think about the fight that for the first time they could win; here he could only look and swear silently that the hingehead needed to get off his world if he wanted to keep that ugly head.

It was hard to even focus on his job. Brady couldn't stop thinking about the elite that people were just letting stand at their memorial. It was nauseating. He literally felt near physical sickness every time he glanced over those toothy mandibles flickering or alien eyes looking forward at the lower corner of the memorial. This entire situation should be one of mourning and respect, but the hingeheads presence kept bringing Brady back to feeling disgust. And the idea? The idea that humans were supposed to hold hands with the people that tried to wipe them out, that had no qualms before with killing civilians and noncombatants, and play nice was revolting.

What was expected of him?

Was he supposed to forget everything? Not going to happen. The images of the dead were seared into his mind. The slightest smell of smoke had him seeing the burned cities and corpses of many a different war zone. Faces frozen in a rictus of pain and horror appeared without warning when he shut his eyes, ready to disrupt the blank darkness behind his eyelids. There was no forgetting the sounds of plasma weapons, of Banshees screaming down on bunkered soldiers, the roars of various Covenant or their snarling languages; the dead, the dying, the dead. There was no chance of forgetting the war that _his_ people started.

Was he supposed to just forgive them then, of all the crimes that would never be forgotten? It was hard to think about that ever happening. Brady had scars, in every sense of the word, and he wasn't forgiving the ones who had dished them out. The Covenant had broken every family in humanity in one way or another. They had sent their fiery glassings down on human worlds and not even Earth was unscathed. As he aged, the amount of breakings, sprains, bruises, cuts- injuries of all kinds- were going to ache and worsen. His left ribs ached just when he would let himself look over the heating ground at the imposing alien representative, reminding him of when just one backhanded hit from one of his fellow split-chins had sent him rolling and put him out of commission until his stay in the medbay was done. Brady didn't want to forgive any of the Covenant, or ex-covenant as they were now. He wanted them gone.

Gone. Out of his life. Out of all their lives. Certainly not acting plaintive over the deaths they had inadvertently or directly caused.

The Admiral finished speaking, his last words drifting over the empty land.

"They ennobled all of us, and they shall not be forgotten."

Brady prepped his gun to present arms; from the outside, his movements were no different from his fellows in line. Well practiced and polished. No matter what disgust or open hatred he felt at the audacity of having a split-jaw at the human memorial, he would not let it impede his job to respect the fallen heroes. But with every press of his trigger, he let himself snarl internally at the elite as if the barrel could be swung at every one of his kind at once instead of at the air of Voi.

What the Covenant did had affected every human.

They scarred all of us. That shall not be forgotten.

* * *

Admiral Terrance Hood, known to many as Lord Hood, exchanged only brief words with the Sangheili Arbiter at the foot of the monument. Thel 'Vadam towered over his human form but there was no imbalance in either.

"I can't forgive you. But you have my thanks, for standing by him to the end."

He said no more on that matter, moving instead to conversation on Spartan 117. There was no more to be said at the time, at the place.

The sun rose over the Kilimanjaro. It fell on the departing guests of the Voi Memorial and showed each one to be well at externally hiding the internal conflict of the wars end.

* * *

_AN- Personally, I love Thel- I was always in the camp that really enjoyed getting to play the Arbiter's mission in Halo 2 and see the inner workings of the Covenant as they fell apart. But for every marine in halo 3 that was pumped to see him come to their aid on a battlefield in gameplay, there was no doubt another who couldn't stand Sangheili presence...because lets face it, there's a lot of trauma packed into decades of attempted genocide that isn't going to disappear overnight after one hand shake between two leader figures._

_Please point out any spelling/grammar error so I can fix it :)_

_Thank you for your time! Please leave a review :D_


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